Of Similar Mind (But Not of Similar Heart)
by princessofthedeadsheep
Summary: There is only one choice, now. She needs to find a way to go back. Not to fix things, but to make sure they never get broken in the first place. Chronogirl/Timebreaker AU, heavy angst, Major & Minor Character Deaths, some violence


**So I ended up getting hit by inspiration- like really hit by it- for the first time in years reading "The Desperation Of A Once-Lucky Bug" on AO3 and I managed to bang out a good portion of this in about 3 hours. Of course it required some fleshing out and editing, but I really wanted to get this out soon. Even though it isn't any of my other fics. Or even for the same fandom... I promise I do work on my other fics... just... the muse comes and goes and takes long vacations...**

**As far as THIS story goes, the warnings are there for a reason. This fic is super sad. It's based on Lady Lombax's story but not precisely the same, and reading that story is definitely a different experience than this one. I recommend reading "The Desperation Of A Once-Lucky Bug" as well, but this one should stand on it's own (and please let me know if it doesn't). This one deals with the direct aftermath and evolution of Marinette as she deals with what happens in this Chronogirl/Timebreaker AU (I don't specify partially because I want people to insert with the one they prefer and partially because frankly, both names are just utter mood killers). Details from her story were slightly changed to better fit canon as we know it now or what I felt would work better for this story overall. **

**I hope everyone likes it, please let me know what you think!**

"CHAT!" Ladybug screams, clutching at the Miraculous on the ground, the black ring glowing green at her touch.

Ladybug takes Chat's Miraculous, going cold in her hands as her own Miraculous runs out of time, the release of the transformation lost to her as she begins to sob. Marinette barely notices as Tikki curls into her shoulder. It only takes a moment later for what must be Chat's Kwami to come out from the now silver Miraculous, shouting.

"That stupid, selfless fool!" is about all she catches before he descends into what can only be called yowling. She clutches him close to her chest and they grieve together, her harsh sobs and his yowling the only thing she can hear. At some point she and Chat's Kwami are reduced to only keening and whimpering sounds, getting quieter and quieter. Eventually she feels Tikki pull Chat's Kwami away, presumably into her purse and away from people who could see them.

People who have started to come back, who have finally realized that something is wrong beyond akumas and the usual expectations of Papillion's interference. She barely moves when someone touches her, and when she finally looks up she feels her heart constrict, a whimper coming out before she can stop it. Sabrina's father is looking down at her, and he doesn't know his daughter is- and someone has to tell him that… they're all gone. She doesn't even know if she can say anything, isn't particularly inclined to.

"What's happened?" someone else is crying, and she looks up dazedly at a horrified Alix. "Oh God, what did I do?" Alix looks so scared and pale and she's shaking. That's just about the only thing that could rouse her from her grief.

"It's not your fault," Marinette says. The words probably don't come out very clearly, but Alix seems to get the basic idea anyway.

"No, I remember I was angry, and they were all here and now they're gone and I don't-" Alix breaks off, and there's a horror there that Marinette can't blame her for. "I was akumatized wasn't I? What did I do?" There's no answer but the shuffling of feet, and Marinette realizes that the remains of her classmates have come over, Ivan and Juleka and Nino along with some other adults. She feels another pang of grief, _gone, all gone..._

"You made them disappear, somehow," and it's Juleka, speaking as quietly as she is prone, but in the uneasy silence she is easily heard.

"It didn't work," Marinette says, and she feels all eyes on her as soon as she says it. "Ladybug's Miraculous cure didn't work, because Chat Noir-" a fresh sob makes its way out of Marinette's throat and she thought she had nothing left to cry but she was wrong. Someone brings their arm around her shoulder and she leans into it without looking at them. Tikki and Chat Noir's Kwami are long since hidden, and she is still clutching the Black Cat Miraculous and they will have to pry it from her cold dead hands if they want it.

It doesn't come to that.

She sort of wishes it had.

Instead she weeps harder than she thinks she ever has in her entire life.

She's home and her parents are fussing and she is ignoring them. She doesn't remember how she got home. She feels numb, now that the tears are gone. She can't deny it after seeing it with her own eyes. Is it shock? Is that why she can't feel anything? Or is she lying to herself, still denying the truth on some level? She doesn't know.

She's never lost someone like this.

She can't focus on anything. Nothing feels real. Not even the feeling of two Kwamis under her shirt. They're curled together and she still doesn't know the name of Chat's- she shuts down the thoughts before they can materialize.

They questioned her. She's not entirely sure what she said, but given that no one started screaming at her she thinks she managed not to say she was Ladybug. She doesn't care if they know, honestly. What does it even matter? They're gone, they're all gone. Fifteen people. The police had counted. Sabrina's father had been distraught. Ivan, Nino, and Juleka had found the shock wearing off enough to cry. But Alix was the worst. They'd had to call her father because she had become inconsolable. Marinette can't blame her. Neither can anyone else. This is the horror story that many of those less faithful of Ladybug and Chat Noir had long feared. Papillon has finally done something that truly can't be fixed.

She'd seen Madame Chamack earlier, coming to cover the story. Marinette had apologized to her for missing the pick up. "I thought I had more time," she told Madame Chamack. Madame Chamack had seemed at a loss for a moment, before she merely gave Marinette a hug. She doesn't really remember anything after that.

* * *

That night she finds herself sitting on her rooftop terrace after she finally manages to shake off her parents. The lights of Paris have never seemed so dull. Chat Noir's Kwami and Tikki are sitting on either side of her, staring out at the Paris skyline with her.

"He really did care about you, loved you as much as he could," Chat Noir's Kwami says after a while of sitting and staring. She turns to look at him. His green eyes are dull and his whiskers are drooping, but this is the most composed she's seen him.

"I loved him, too," she says. "Maybe not the way he wanted me to, but I still loved him. I still cared." He nods, green eyes getting suspiciously wet.

"Plagg," he says, as he holds out a paw. She takes it with a finger and shakes it.

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," she responds quietly. They let go and he gives her what might have been an attempt at a smile, but is definitely a grimace.

"You gonna let go of my ring any time soon?" he asks lightly, and she's beginning to suspect that the nasal quality to his voice is natural and not a result of grief. She looks down at her hand and realizes with a jolt that she hasn't let go of the ring since she picked it up. It's imprinted on her hand, digging into the skin enough that she's actually bruised the area around the Miraculous. The very idea of parting with it is… unthinkable. Instead, she slides it onto one of her fingers. She feels it resize to fit her hand even as Plagg sucks in a breath and Tikki cries out.

"Marinette! It's dangerous to wield two Miraculous!" Tikki is fluttering around her, face drawn into an anxious frown.

"It's a lot for a single human to handle. It will hurt you," Plagg adds, watching her with resignation. He hasn't moved from where he's sitting and she knows he doesn't have the strength for Tikki's worried outrage.

"I'm not wielding the ring. I just want to wear it for now. Come on, I guess I should try to sleep," Marinette says, turning away from them both. She doesn't have to see their expressions to know they don't believe her. That's okay.

She doesn't really believe herself, either.

She tosses and turns and eventually her body actually does give in to a restless, nightmarish sleep that she wakes from not long after. She pushes herself up, stumbling down towards the bathroom. She sees them again, flashing in her eyes. They cycle through her mind, fifteen people gone with a touch. She drops to her knees in front of the toilet, heaving. She can't remember the last thing she ate, isn't terribly surprised when she quickly finds herself heaving nothing but bile. She almost welcomes the raw, burning feeling in her throat. It's the first real pain she's felt so far. Everything is still too numb. She stumbles out of the bathroom as she stumbled in, and she gives up going back to her loft bed and just lays on the floor.

She stares at her ceiling, her mind utterly blank. Dawn's light is coming from her skylight, and she watches as it gets brighter and brighter, until it's too bright to look at any longer. She closes her eyes but the image of Chat after he'd been hit is stuck in her head and she yanks them open again, unable to avoid the tears that pool in her eyes and the sickness in her gut. She turns her head and her sight lands on Tikki and Plagg, wrapped around each other on the edge of her bed. The very idea that either would be taken from her is simply unacceptable. Tikki and Plagg at least still have each other, and having Plagg is like having a part of Chat. Even if it isn't the part she'd have picked if she'd had to, it's something.

She wonders what's going to happen now. She's not sure she wants to know.

* * *

Days go by. She does not go to school, cannot bare to, and she knows she's not the only one. Nino, Ivan, and Juleka come by, and they all sit together with mugs of hot chocolate that Marinette's parents insisted they take that not one of them has touched. Mostly that was all they did, while their parents talked in hushed voices across the room. They've just returned from a memorial for the victims. For once, nobody complained that Chloé's picture was larger than the others as the Mayor broke down over his daughter's death. Alix is in seclusion, and apparently no one knows how she's doing ("badly," Nino says when he hears their parents mention her). A lot of people are expressing their shock at the death of Chat Noir and the subsequent failure of Ladybug's cure. The other's look at her whenever it's mentioned, and she realizes that they know, saw her transform back. She doesn't care and she doubts they do, either.

Adrien's missing. Natalie has been by to confirm that Adrien is not with any of them and apparently no one has seen him in days. Not since the massacre that they've named after Alix's akumatized form (which is probably not helping with Alix's guilt at all, Marinette thinks).The police have already come by, and they ask Marinette about Adrien, and to clarify statements that she made, but there is little she can tell them about the massacre and nothing she can tell them about Adrien. Now their parents are talking about how weird it is that Adrien is missing too.

"It's like all the others, he just disappeared…" she hears her mother say, and she had been thinking of Chat, of his last moments, and green eyes and blond hair and a kind smile. It's a punch to the gut and so sudden that she finds herself dropping the mug she'd been holding (just for something to do with her hands) and staring as it breaks on the floor, hot chocolate and ceramic exploding out onto the carpet.

"Chat," she whispers, unable to help herself, and she hears one of the others take a sharp breath and she thinks it's Nino that makes a broken moan. Her mother's words and her reaction cinch it, and suddenly they all know, and they are all realizing that they've lost someone else, someone precious. Pretty soon they're all crying and the parents rush to take their children away. Marinette cries into her mother's arms and when her parents leave her alone hours later she finds Plagg and looks him in the eye.

"Adrien Agreste was Chat Noir," she tells him, because even if he wasn't looking at her grim faced, she already knows. He nods anyway. She doesn't know what to do. She lost more than she even knew she had to lose. All these things she knows about Adrien, all the little things she learned from her Chaton, and her mind is beginning to merge them. She stands in her room and stares at one of his pictures, before a helpless, hysterical sound claws out of her throat. It is an animalistic sound, somewhere between unbearable heartache and complete disbelief. She collapses to the floor like a broken doll, the sound drawing her parents back to her. They come upstairs to try and comfort her, but there is no comfort they can truly give. Nothing will fix this. Nothing will make this alright.

* * *

The first Akuma attack after the massacre is what brings the numbness to an end. In its place is a crushing wave of unadulterated rage. How dare he? The man who killed her partner, the man who killed her friends, who took so much from her, how dare he?

She's still wearing both Miraculous. The words fall from her lips easily and she doesn't even realize that both Kwamis have disappeared, that she no longer looks like Ladybug. She's out there and fighting before she can think of doing anything else, her rage fueling every movement, driving her to show much less mercy to the Akuma than she normally would. She doesn't even realize that she's automatically started using both her yo-yo and Chat's staff. It might very well be a record breaking fight. She still manages to cast the cure after the fight, choking on the words though she is. Like the last time, she notices that it fails to completely fix the damage. She can tell that she will still have bruises, she can tell that there is still some damage to the buildings and streets around them, though not nearly as much damage as there used to be.

"Ladybug, Ladybug is that you?" Madame Chamack is coming up to her, and she finds herself answering automatically.

"I'm not Ladybug. I can't be Ladybug without Chat Noir," she says. Even though it isn't something she's put words to before now she knows it's true. She was only Ladybug because of Chat. Without him, there is no Ladybug.

"Is that the reason for the new outfit?" Madame Chamack asks.

"Yes," she answers even though she doesn't know what Madame Chamack is talking about. Now that she's paying a bit of attention, she realizes there is something in front of her eyes beyond her usual mask. She glances down at her costume, notes the smudging of the spots on her chest and arm bracers. Paneled black leather on her arms and legs. The glimpse of black fabric cut like insect wings hitting the back of her knees, and red knee-high boots with black tips. She has Chat's gloves, and she bets if she were to look, his ears as well. She can't muster up more than mild surprise now that the target of her wrath is gone.

"So what should we call you now?" Madame Chamack asks and this time Marinette pauses. Thinks for a moment.

"Harlequin," she says, "call me Harlequin now," and then she leaves, leaping away. Halfway across the rooftops, she hears her own voice, and turns. Immediately, she is hit with a ferocious horror as she sees the apparition of herself, discovering the death of her partner. As she calls out for any of the missing, as she spots the ring, as she detransforms… it stops a moment later, when Plagg would have come out of the ring.

When did she end up on her knees? When did she start crying? Why is she seeing this? The last beep of her Miraculous goes off and Plagg and Tikki appear, watching her with sad eyes.

"The Miraculous cure is struggling to work," Plagg says grimly. He and Tikki exchange a glance.

"What does that me-mean?" Marinette asks, voice cracking.

"It means that Papillion has officially tipped the Balance," Tikki replied. Her antenna hung low as she stared at the ring on Marinette's finger. "It isn't the first time it's happened, and it isn't a good thing. So long as the Balance is tipped, you'll have that apparition coming around at least once a week. It's the cure struggling to restore the Balance. If it can't…" she and Plagg exchange another, longer look.

"Tell me," Marinette demands, looking between the Kwami.

"It means that the cure, among other things, is not going to work as well as it should," Plagg answers her. "It means that until the Balance is restored, things are gradually going to get worse. For you, for Paris. The universe will struggle to make up the difference the Miraculous can no longer account for. It's the time travel that really messed up the Balance, actually. Or rather, the lack of it."

"What Plagg means," Tikki immediately interjects as Marinette looks at him with a startled expression, "is that there wasn't an exchange of energy equal to that of what was taken. If there had been time travel, it might have been possible to prevent this. Time travel is tricky though, so it may have worked out even worse."

"Wait, so it's possible? To go back in time?" Marinette asks, a spark of an idea she hadn't even realized she was considering coming to life. Tikki and Plagg are frowning, but they nod almost in unison.

"It can be done- has been done, actually. It wouldn't be the first time Tikki and I have done so," Plagg says. "The real problem though is that it is unique to each situation. The Guardians usually handle the actual process itself. How it's done matters, and you still have to worry about Papillion."

"It'll kill you, you know," Tikki tells her quietly. "Your body will break down over time using two Miraculous, you might not be able to find an answer before-"

"Then I'll get rid of Papillion long before that happens," she interrupts, the rage is coming back now, burning deep and overtaking the numbness. "I will make Papillion pay for the people he's killed. I'll catch him and I'll stop him, and then I'll go back before he even got this far. If it had been me, Chat- Adrien… h-he'd have done th-the same."

"You're right about that," Plagg says quietly. She gives him her first smile since this nightmare began. She calls for her transformation again, and heads home. When she returns to her room she begins to rearrange it, taking down pictures of Adrien and removing his now useless schedule. She pulls out other pictures. Pictures of all the others. Class pictures and birthday parties over the years. By the time she's done she has a wall of memorial.

Alya and Nino posing together, Rose and Juleka working on a project. Nathanael drawing in his sketchbook, face screwed up in concentration. One of the very few pictures she has of Adrien with an actual genuine smile on his face, and a picture of him as Chat Noir with his teasing smile, and one when he's looking at her like she's hung the moon (even though that one _hurts_, because it's _Adrien_, and she _never knew_). Ivan and Mylène after they got together. Kim during one of his dares, Max showing off one of his robots, even Chloé and Sabrina are here. Alix too, because there is no way Alix will ever be the same, and it's like Papillion's killed her, too.

The anger is present even now, but with the rage comes purpose. She cannot, will not let it end this way. She will find a way to make Papillion pay.

And maybe, hopefully, a way to make it so that this never happened at all.

* * *

Marinette recognizes the Hawaiian shirted man who stands before her with a bleak expression, but only _barely_. Before she can say anything to this man who has somehow made it past her parents to burst into her home, he speaks.

"Hello, Marinette. Or should I call you Harlequin now?"

She does not react, only watches him with an impassive face. She feels Plagg and Tikki pull themselves from under her shirt to her shoulders.

"Hello, Master Fu," Tikki says, all politeness. Plagg only glares, the whisker like appendages on his face twitching and his tail lashing. She takes the man to sit at the table and they sit across from each other in silence for a few moments.

"Marinette, I am Master Fu. I am the Great Guardian and I am the one who gave you your Miraculous," he tells her after he realizes this is as pleasant a welcome as he's going to get. He sighs, scratching his goatee and looking at her with a pained expression. She feels a flash of irritation, buried beneath the numbness and the simmering rage. "Marinette, you cannot use both the Lady-" he begins and she cuts him off sharply.

"Yes, I can and I will. Papillon has killed fifteen people, including my friends. Including my partner. I will avenge them, and I will accept no other as my partner. I already know it's dangerous, I don't care," she tells him, her own voice level, emotionless.

"That is not the only reason. Wielding both will not just dramatically shorten your lifespan the longer you use them, it will make you dangerous to others. Things are already unstable due to Chat Noir's death." Master Fu is trying to appeal to her sense of fairness, she supposes. She doesn't care. She knows now more than ever that life is not fair, and that she must fight for what little she has left.

"You trusted me, you trusted both of us with this responsibility," she has to pause, has to control the ire that is always so close these days, as she looks at the man who arguably had a hand in her suffering. "I will continue to do what I can to save Paris, even if that is now much less than it was before. It's what Adrien would have wanted. He would have wanted me to take down Papillon." She folds her arms in front of herself, fingers digging hard into her flesh to keep her steady. "If you weren't prepared for something like this, than you shouldn't have trusted the responsibility to me and Adrien. You've made your choice Master Fu, and so have I."

"Marinette," he sighs, and the look he gives her feels like pity, even if it isn't. She scowls.

"You left us with only our Kwamis, with no one else to turn to, and now you're surprised by the fact that I'm doing this? Why? You didn't spend any time with me or Adrien, really. I don't know what you expected. But we… I'm only thirteen you know. I didn't ask for this, but you made it happen. You didn't give us any guidance yourself. I don't know you. I'm not sure why I should care what you think. And if you try to take them from me, I will fight you. You will not take the last piece of Chat Noir I have away from me. _You will not_." Her voice never wavers, only becomes more intense. She stares at this man who is trying to make claims to her miraculous with a hard, determined gaze. His own gaze holds an old grief that she can recognize but refuses to empathize with.

Before he can argue back, Tikki speaks up.

"Let me and Plagg have a chat with Master Fu, okay, Marinette?" she gives Marinette a reassuring smile, and Marinette shrugs and goes into the hall. She doesn't hear what happens, but in the end Master Fu comes out and gives her nothing more than a sigh and an apology. He doesn't try to take Plagg and Tikki away from her though, and that's all she cares about.

* * *

It takes her years to track down Papillon. In the meantime, she, Nino, Ivan, Juleka, and Alix return to school. Their classroom is like a graveyard, and it's always quiet. They sit in the same seats they used to, unable to bring themselves to move. Most of their teachers ignore it as best they can, but there is no avoiding it.

Nino no longer DJs, drops it entirely because it had been one of the things he had used to most connect with his friends. He almost completely ignores music, often becoming distraught when he hears a song that reminds him of one of their friends. Juleka and Ivan are closer than ever, trying desperately to fill in the gaps, connecting in their shared grief. Marinette and Nino were more loners before, but Ivan and Juleka clearly need someone to support them, and Marinette does not begrudge them that. They try to forge new lives but that day marks them all. It comes to the point where they can barely even look at each other, the grief too present, the loss too obvious. Alix is never the same. She is no longer the vibrant girl she used to be and she clearly blames herself for the massacre. She's out of school about as often as she's in, and her grades are about as good as Marinette's (abysmal) and she barely talks.

No one is surprised when news of her suicide comes out, on the third anniversary of the massacre. Marinette attends her funeral, and adds her firmly to her ever-growing list of lives Papillion has ended.

As time goes on, the imbalance becomes clearer. The Miraculous cure becomes more hit or miss, and Papillion's death toll climbs, as well as the collateral damage to buildings and people from the Akuma battles. As Plagg predicted, things get steadily worse, and though Marinette pays little attention to politics, even she notices the steady increase in infighting at the mayor's office. The Balance affects more than just Paris though, and it quickly becomes clear that other countries have been hiding troubles as well. By the time Marinette is halfway through lycée, natural disasters have started to run rampant and it quickly becomes clear world war three might well be coming as other countries try desperately to manage and acquire dwindling resources.

Marinette does not try to move on. She often sits in her room and writing in her diary all the little things that she missed. The things she memorized about Adrien, the things Chat let slip or outright told her about his civilian life, weaving the two together and coming up with the heart and soul of her partner, her crush, her love, her _soulmate_.

She does manage to make time for her parents, for her other family who visit or call when they can (because Adrien had a broken family, was desperate for this kind of love, she'll appreciate it for him). Her parents fret and fuss over her and try so hard to get her to move on, but they don't understand that she won't. That she can't. Her parents get her in to see therapists (she misses more appointments than she ever attends, only some because of akumas) and try to explain to her that this preoccupation with what she lost isn't healthy. She tries to explain, without talking about the Miraculous, about why she will never let this go. The therapists are the opposite of helpful, and her parents are convinced she just hasn't processed her grief.

Maybe she hasn't, but that changes nothing. She will defeat Papillion, and she will find a way to stop the massacre. There is no other acceptable alternative. There is nothing else to live for, especially as she feels her body begin to break down, wrenching pain racking through her body and the weekly reminder of those horrible moments when she discovered the Miraculous cure failed. She learns to hit the image of herself immediately when it appears to make it dissipate again, but it never fails to bring back all the grief -raw and fresh and painful- every time.

Marinette finds Papillion the day after he kills her parents and destroys her home in one fell swoop, another nearly crippling blow that she instead uses to fuel her ever increasing ire. She finds Papillion's lair in the Agreste mansion, white butterflies fluttering innocently around the room, and the man she now knows to be Gabriel Agreste standing transformed in the middle of it all. What follows can hardly really be called a fight- more of an anti-climatic scuffle. Her attacks are vicious and uncoordinated, but the Butterfly Miraculous is not really intended for fighting like this, and Gabriel Agreste has not had an easy few years himself, even if he deserved every ounce of suffering he's received. He manages to get in a few blows but her scraping claws leave him bleeding and slowing quickly. She nearly gouges out his right eye after he tries to corner her and his instinctive flinch back gives her all the opening she needs to slam him to the ground, ripping off his Miraculous and forcing out the Butterfly Kwami. She pays no attention to this as she takes a moment to lift and slam the now unmasked Gabriel into the ground a second time.

"How could you?" She screams into his face, throwing the Butterfly Miraculous to the side (dimly she registers an unknown Kwami shooting past her to catch it). "You killed my partner, your own son! You killed Adrien! You killed my parents! You've killed hundreds of people!" he pushes her back, struggling, but without his Miraculous she is stronger than him.

"I can bring him back, I can bring them both back!" he is shouting too, and his eyes are wild. "With the Miraculous, I can make a wish to turn back time! I can go back to before all this happened! None of this would have happened, none of it matters as long as I can turn it back!"

Marinette tips back, hands still clutching at his shirt which is ripping open from the force of her grip and she begins to laugh. A mirthful hysteria. "So that makes it alright? You think either of them would want that?"

"It doesn't matter what they would have wanted! They're dead!" Gabriel grabs at her throat and she just laughs some more as she slaps his hands down, banging them onto the floor..

"It does matter. It matters because Adrien never had a father because of you. You made your son practically an orphan, living in a gilded cage. Then you killed him, and so many others. You destroyed the Balance. And for what? A possibility? One you don't even deserve?"

"I did it for my family," he says, and he stops struggling as he tries a different tactic. "Isn't that what you're doing? You kept fighting for Adrien, for your partner." Abruptly, even hysterical humor abandons her, leaving her only with her rage.

"No it's not, because I actually paid attention to people other than myself. I paid attention to what Adrien would have wanted me to do- not just defeating you and saving Paris, but paying attention to the people I loved, trying to bring them joy even when I was in pain, even when I wanted nothing more than to give up. But you? You didn't care about any of that. You didn't do this for your family. You did this for yourself. It was all about your pain- nevermind Adrien's. It was all about your suffering- nevermind all you put the people of Paris through. None of those people mattered to you. You wanted everybody to suffer like you did, and now you'll pay the price for it," she lifts a single hand into the air, "Cataclysm." The blackness bubbles in her hands and she gives him a savage smile. He begins to struggle anew, but she slams her hand down onto his now revealed chest. She watches his face twist in agony as all of his organs begin to fail, watches as his chest blackens.

She watches the man who ruined her life die, and feels the unstoppable fury drain away with his life. She is left with an empty, hollow feeling. She has done it, finally. Three years later, thousands of deaths later. Paris is in ruins and Gabriel Agreste thought he could wipe it all away and that would suddenly redeem him, as though bringing those people back, winding back time would somehow undo the stains on his soul.

At least she wears the stains on her soul knowing they will never go away, never be undone.

* * *

_I can go back to before all this happened!_

She can't stop thinking about it. She tosses and turns that night. She never sleeps very well, but it is worse tonight than it usually is. Part of that can be attributed to her sleeping in Master Fu's living room, but the other part... pushing herself out of the makeshift bed Master Fu had made her, she heads to the kitchen. Maybe something to drink will help her. Tikki and Plagg are sleeping curled together as they always do and she tries her best not to disturb them. Of course, they may very well be choosing to leave her alone because she has no idea where Master Fu keeps all of his tea things and she knows she makes more noise than she intends, but when she finally has all the components, she is alone.

"Perhaps you could make enough for two, Marinette?" Master Fu asks behind her. So only mostly alone, she thinks dryly. She acquiesces and once the kettle is set on the fire, she leans on the counter across from him.

"I hope I didn't wake you," she says quietly, still mindful of the (hopefully) sleeping Kwamis.

"Not at all. I'm an old, old man Marinette. Insomnia comes with the aches and pains," he said with a rueful smile.

"Thank you for letting me stay," she says, because she hasn't actually said anything about it, just showed up at his door with the Butterfly Miraculous and a bag full of what she'd managed to scavenge from the rubble of her parent's bakery. Master Fu is silent, studying her. She says nothing further and they wait in silence until the kettle begins to boil. Master Fu is the one who makes the tea, and she can tell that he is deciding what to say to her as they wait for the tea to steep. She leaves him to his thoughts, and continues to mull on her own, on Gabriel's words and her own.

"Do you know why I let you keep both Miraculous, Marinette?" Master Fu finally asks her when she has a cup of tea in front of her.

"No," she admits easily. "I didn't care enough to eavesdrop, and Tikki and Plagg never mentioned it."

"I was prepared to try and take them from you, but then Tikki and Plagg revealed how badly the Balance had tipped. With that being the case… I decided it was better to let you take the lead. I worried, but your devotion to Adrien kept you on the right path. Or close to it," he added when Marinette didn't quite manage to suppress a snort. "Your devotion to turning back time… it has been done before." Marinette gripped her teacup hard enough to bruise, only letting go when Master Fu gave her a pointed look.

"Tikki and Plagg mentioned that it had been done, before. It's what Gabriel wanted, too." she takes a deep drink of the tea, ignoring the burning in her mouth and throat.

"Does that concern you? That you want to do the same thing as him?" Master Fu asks her. Of course, he would know to ask. She knows him better now, and though she'd never call him infallible, he isn't so old for nothing.

"Gabriel was wrong," she says. "It matters, what he did. The very idea that turning back time would make it so it doesn't matter is sickening. Of course it matters."

"Why does it matter, Marinette?" he asks, and she knows he's only doing it so she can talk it out but it helps to talk about it with someone that she knows will really get it. Plagg and Tikki are great, but they aren't human and there is sometimes a lack of understanding that even centuries of observation simply can't bridge.

"Gabriel didn't deserve to go back," she bites out. "He squandered everything he had while he had it! What made him think he would even be able to appreciate it when he had it all back again? His happiness was the only thing that mattered, and frankly, I don't think even that made him happy." she downs the rest of her tea in one fell swoop, before pushing her teacup aside to shove a hand through the hair she'd taken to chopping off herself whenever it reached lower than her chin.

"Just! The arrogance of it all, the selfishness! Adrien lost it all because of him! Alix killed herself because of him! Thousands of people have died because of him! And that's just in Paris, which is holding on by its teeth. That doesn't even touch the Balance and everything his ruining it has done to the _entire world!_

"Gabriel was delusional. Even if he'd succeeded, the problem always would have been _him_. He was the issue in the entire equation. He would still have been an awful father, and Adrien still would have suffered. His wife would still have had to deal with a man who cared more about his own feelings than anyone else. He would still have been the same selfish, awful person he was at the end of his life. In fact, that just makes it worse, because no one would understand where this suddenly certifiably insane Gabriel had even come from. The chaos… I don't even want to imagine." Shaking her head as she wound down from her rant, she looked up at Master Fu to see a look on his face she couldn't name.

"So I take it you don't plan to return to the body of your younger self," he said. She shakes her head.

"I don't deserve to live a life back in time. I am not fooled into thinking that turning back time is for my benefit. I'm dying already, and it's what is supposed to be. No one at that time deserves to deal with this version of me. My Chaton, my friends, my parents…" The tears she usually managed to push aside through her anger are back in full force, now that Gabriel is dead. The emptiness where her wrath once sit easily fills in with despair, and she has no way to stop the tears. Master Fu comes around the table and pulls her into a hug. She cries, really cries, for the first time in years. It is the first time she takes a moment to grieve her parents' deaths, to feel the pain she'd turned to anger as she made that final push to find Gabriel. She doesn't know how long he lets her grieve, but she feels better for it.

"Marinette," he says when her tears are done, "part of the reason I allowed you to keep your Miraculous was because of that exactly. In order to restore the balance, sacrifice will be necessary. Since the balance has been tipped for so long, once you go back… this timeline will unravel. All that has been since the Balance tipped will be undone. It's barely maintaining as it is. I know you don't believe it, Marinette, but you are still a pure soul, and that is the only reason I believe you can do this without unraveling more than just this doomed timeline."

Marinette gave a hoarse laugh. "I really don't think you can call my soul pure anymore. I did kill Gabriel. I don't even regret it."

"Doing what is necessary without the expectation of reward is part of being a hero. So is doing things that may hurt you, for the good of others. Preventing this is as important as defeating Papillion was."

"I'm not doing this with selfless intentions," she reminded him.

"You are human, you are always going to have selfish desires that can coincide with selfless ones. You will not live in the timeline you create. You are going back to provide all those other people a chance. I believe that is a pretty selfless desire, when you know you won't live to see the results." Master Fu pulled her up, leading her to the makeshift bed, tucking her in like a child of six rather than sixteen. Plagg and Tikki were nowhere to be found, she noticed.

"My only desire after I prevent the massacre is pretty selfish," she admits. He gives a little chuckle and she smiles and finds herself drifting off with that one desire in mind. Because while death will be a blessed relief after all this pain, she can't help but want to be complete again.

* * *

Master Fu dies before she finds what she needs. It's a long process that requires her to question the other Kwamis as well as her own, and to do things she never would have considered sane once, before she had even heard of the Miraculous. Her body pains become more frequent as her body breaks down. Her limited window gets slimmer every day. Finally, Two years after the death of Master Fu, four years after she ended Gabriel's reign of terror, seven years after she lost the one person who completed her and so many more, she finds her way back.

It's like walking into a dream. Paris is pristine compared to the Paris she has known in recent years, and she looks down and sees them, these people she has grieved for seven years, whole and alive and it's almost too much. It's a good thing that she is used to burying her emotions, to keeping herself calm enough to do the job. She sees Chloé take the watch and moves into action, preventing Alix's akumitization entirely. Her time is limited, and she has a duty to do, a line to walk. A show to put on.

She pretends for Alya's ever present camera (and feels a whole new pang of grief, she looks so young, they all look _so young_) and weaves enough of her story for them to know how to avoid immediate disaster. Of course, the Miraculous chooses this opportune time to provide it's little apparition show. She hits it just before it reveals her identity, knowing it says more than she ever can. It's all that she can do, or she will tip the balance again and that is something she would wish on no one. She leaves the distraught class to their own devices once she sets the meeting time with the Marinette and Adrien of this shiny new timeline. As she leaves, all that she can think is she's happy they're alive to be upset about it.

The last night of her life is spent on the Eiffel Tower, listening to Adrien's favorite music and looking out on a Paris that has more of a chance than hers had known in seven years. A living, thriving Paris, with two superheroes and a living Guardian for the Miraculous. She can't ignore the longing she feels for her other half, but that is an ache that she is used to by now. She senses the two coming before she hears them land. The Miraculous are desperate to merge, recognizing that there is a paradox in her arrival with two of the same Miraculous already being wielded. Talking to her younger self and to an Adrien Agreste that won't ever be hers is slightly surreal, but mostly just sad. They are so innocent, and they immediately react when her body briefly descends into its normal spasms of pain, trying to help her. God, was she really so wide-eyed and bright once?

She isn't terribly surprised by her younger self's immediate panic when she tells them they have to reveal themselves to merge the Miraculous. Even so, she loses her patience quickly- there really isn't any time for all this teenage angst and self-doubt when she has less than an hour left. Besides, Adrien is going to need her other self, knowing who Papillion is and how that has the potential to destroy Adrien's life.

Their faces when she introduces them to each other using their civilian names are priceless though, and maybe worth the wasted time. Amusement is something she hasn't had a great deal of these past few years. Once her transformation releases, she can already feel her body beginning to sag. It's something else to see Plagg cling to Adrien. She knew he would but given Plagg's personality she isn't surprised that Adrien looks genuinely taken aback by how much Plagg missed him. Good, he should know he's loved.

Of course, Tikki and Plagg would never let her go without a proper goodbye to remind her they loved her too. It had been one of the few things that had kept her going during her darkest days, when she doubted that she'd ever manage any of her goals. She isn't surprised that she and Tikki cry, and Plagg looks like he might cry but is holding back. She's so happy to have had him, to have had them both.

Thankfully, the merge goes off without a hitch and she doesn't have to perform any of the Guardian duties that Master Fu drilled into her before he died. All that's left to deal with is her. She gives Marinette a few of her things that she knows won't hurt the balance- notes on Kwami and things about being a Guardian that she learned after Master Fu died. She is glad she did this. She Is ready to embrace death, after all these years of suffering, no matter what comes, it will be a relief. And then something happens. Her body becomes younger, and she can sense something shifting. "What the hell?" she asks aloud.

"More often than not, the Universe can seem a cruel place. But sometimes, it can be kind," Tikki tells her. A green glow, a shifting shape, and then her Chaton is there. She knew she would be accepting death, hoped that would mean seeing Adrien again, but this! He's here with her now, she reaches out to touch him and for the first time in seven years she really has her partner back. The Yin to her Yang, the boy she had loved and never forgotten.

"Hello, My Lady," he says, mask-less and smiling in that cheeky way she thought she'd never see again.

"Hello, Chaton," she says with a disbelieving laugh. She knows she's crying, and smiling more than she has in years. She can't believe it. She had never expected to be rewarded for this. She pulls him to her and their foreheads touch. She can feel herself dissipating, what's left of her life leaving her and she doesn't care. She and her kitty are together again.

"You did so well, My Lady," he says, "I'm so proud of you." She laughs some more as she feels herself pulled closer to him, closer than a living body allowed. She can't tell where she is anymore but it doesn't matter. She's with Adrien again. She doesn't care about what is waiting for her, because this moment alone?

It was worth every second before it.

**I have zero idea how to write a fight scene, wowza. Even so, I can't imagine a battle with Harlequin being anything but anti-climatic, because she has become wicked experienced at fighting even while in pain over the years and Gabriel... is just sort of dissolving. Even as he pushes himself harder into stealing the Miraculous he unravels more and more and by the time Harlequin comes, he is not really that much longer for this world anyway. Maybe another seven years if he's very lucky (or maybe very unlucky depending on your perspective).**

**I also teared up and cried multiple times while writing this. You know it's sad when you make _yourself_ cry.**


End file.
